What Is Enlightenment Magazine (Fall/Winter 2002)

Breaking Limits with Sri Chinmoy and Ashrita Furman
An interview by Elizabeth Debold and Carter Phipps

WHEN IT COMES TO MIRACLES, it open seems like the past has an almost complete monopoly. Look at just about any religion and you'll see that its spiritual canon is filled with endless stories of extraordinary events, miraculous transfor mations and divine interventions. They are inspiring,unexpected, and sometimes too much to believe mystify, fascinate, and tantalise, and they seem so, well . . . so much a part of the past, usually the ancient past. Does that mean that the rise of the scientific age has sounded the death knell of the miraculous? Are the miracles of spiritual transformation that have so long stoked the devotional fires of the faithful merely anachronistic relics in the more rational climate of our contemporary society? For all of the skeptics in the land of the spirit who might be tempted to answer that question with a "yes," let me introduce Exhibit A for the defense: Sri Chinmoy and Ashrita Furman.

Sri Chinmoy, a world famous spiritual teacher, musician, atist, and prolific poet, is perhaps best known for his near Herculean efforts to promote the ideals of peace and spiritual freedom on the world stage and for the impressive list of spiritual and political friends he has enlisted in these efforts, including Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last two popes, and a former

Above: Sri Chinmoy

Secretary General of the U.N. But his accomplishments hardly stop there. A former decathlete and world class long distance runner, Sri Chinmoy has made the transcendence of human limitations his own personal sadhana [spiritual practice]. And to hear his list of achievements and records – from creating more than sixteen thousand paintings in one twenty four hour period to writing over thirteen hundred books to lifting over seven thousand pounds – is to journey into a world in which normal ideas of what's possible seem to crumble away in the face of the love, devotion, and surrender that Sri Chinmoy cites as the source of his extraordinary talents. But despite his impressive resume of personal achievements, Sri Chinmoy's most extraordinary feat of all may be his near miraculous ability to inspire in many of his students the same kind of limitation shattering abilities that have marked his own spiritual odyssey, and his own accomplishments are perhaps only surpassed by the many accomplishments of those who have been inspired by his example.

Enter Ashrita Furman. A close student of Sri Chinmoy since the early seventies, Furman actually holds the Guinness record for holding the most records in the Guinness Book of Records. Long intrigued by Sri Chinmoy's ability to inspire in his students an almost superhuman capacity to transcend human limitations, WIE caught up with Furman last fall. Speaking from his home in New York City, this mild mannered spiritual devotee shared with us the secrets of his success and the breathtaking stories of his unique achievements. And while his feats might not come close in spectacle to parting the Red Sea or turning water into wine, Furman's deep surrender and unwavering devotion made it very clear that modernity's long shadow of skepticism has not yet eclipsed the miraculous nature of one individual's faith in a sacred power that works its will far beyond the limitations of the physical form.

WIE: Your teacher, Sri Chinmoy is well known for accomplishing extraordinary feats of creativity, physical strength, and endurance. Could you speak about some of what he has accomplished?

ASHRITA FURMAN: Well, the list is pretty amazing. I couldn't possibly tell you all of it. I'll just go through a few of the things. With art, for example, he's painted these amazing acrylic abstract pieces, over 135,000, and they're just astounding. They're so beautiful. He doesn't use his mind at all. He says he follows a streak of light when he paints. And the colors! He doesn't choose them by any kind of mental choice, it's like an intuition – he dips his brush or his sponge or his fingers or however he's painting. He's very creative. The artwork is a perfect example of his creativity, because there's no end to what he has done. It's very exciting when he gets involved in a project, to see how far he'll go and to see his creativity in finding new ways to express his vision. It's really a vision that he's expressing on paper. I've had some incredible meditations looking at his artwork in a gallery or even looking at a print. And the artwork is just one very small aspect of what he's doing. He's always pushing the envelope, you might say. He says that he's not worried about the quality, because he surrenders that to the Supreme. He's an instrument. So he's doing all of this not for his own glory or name and fame. He's doing it to inspire other people. He says that the Supreme has to take care of the quality, and he'll just produce.
One time he wanted to see how many paintings he could do in twenty four hours. It was so exciting – I did the counting. He was painting so fast that there was no place to put all these thousands of paintings. We had to build a machine that would dry off the paper, so we could stack them.

WIE: How many did he do in the end?

AF: He did over sixteen thousand in those twenty four hours. And that is just art. He's also written more than thirteen hundred books – poetry, aphorisms, plays, short stories. It's all coming from his inner realization and it's just endless. He doesn't stop. And he feels a tremendous inner push to keep writing and creating.
Once something really nice happened. He wrote a series of short poems. He said that some people were criticizing him because his poetry wasn't rhyming, so he decided to write a book of rhyming poems. He'd just written it and was very excited about it. He told each person who was there at his house to pick a number from one to one hundred – because he'd written about a hundred poems. Someone would pick a number, and then he'd turn to that page and read the poem. He got to me and I picked number twenty three. The page was blank! So he wrote a poem right on the spur of the moment. I remember, because the poem had to do with being sheltered by the Supreme, which is what my name, Ashrita, means. That's what I mean, he's so creative that on the spur of the moment, he'll just get the inspiration and create. Again, he doesn't think – he just goes deep within and it flows out. Its the same thing with his music I'm not a singer so I'm not really qualified to even talk about his music, but he's written thousands, literally, thousands of songs – beautiful, incredibly uplifting songs in his mother tongue, Bengali, and in English. And I've been to a concert where he's played more than a hundred musical instruments.

WIE: A hundred different instruments?

AF: Yes, and it's all self taught. He's really the foremost expert on the esraj in the world. It's an Indian string instrument, like an Indian cello, you might says It has all these sympathetic strings, so when he plays these notes, the other strings reverberate. It's very moving. He's played more than five hundred concerts around the world. They're free – they're always for free – to inspire people to go deep within and feel that peace within themselves.

It's really almost unfair to try to talk about everything in one conversation. You can't possibly cover everything that he's done. But it's always something new. Even his weightlifting is creative. He doesn't do things in the standard way. He wouldn't just sit down and see how much he could do on a bench press. He'd see what the heaviest elephant is that he could lift on the calf raise machine. He has a whole program that he calls "Liking Up the World," which is a beautiful concept. People stand up on a platform and he gets underneath, pushes up on a handle, and it lifts up the platform. He's literally lifting them up. It's a way of appreciating people. He's lifted more than four thousand people around the world doing this – people like Nelson Mandela – prime ministers, presidents, but also just people who are doing good things.

WIE: How did he start doing the weight lifting? Did he train?

AF: You know, he never used to like weight lifting. He was a decathlete in India, and he was really a champion. He was a champion sprinter in his ashram, and he never liked weights at all. Coming here to the West, he actually was into long distance running for a while, but then his knee was bothering him. So he wanted to find some other form of exercise. But because of that knee injury, he started lifting weights, and, well, his nature is self-transcendence. That's one of the major pillars of his philosophy. It's self transcendence, that there's no end to our progress. As far or as high as you go, you can always go higher. And that's on the spiritual realm, because the Supreme is infinite, there's no end. You just keep going. It's the same thing with everything that he does. So, on a physical plane as well, he inspires us to push ourselves in whatever we do. If we're doing some service, we try to do more service. If we're running a certain number of miles, we can run more miles or we can run faster. Or if we have certain qualities or capacities, we try to transcend them in every way.

WIE: Did he build up doing the weights? I've heard that he can lift up thousands of pounds.

AF: Well, yes. He built up. He started with very light weights, but in a short period of time, within a year I think, he was lifting thousands of pounds. I was actually there when he lifted seven thousand pounds. It was in his house at 1:30 in the morning. There were seventy hundred pound plates that were on either side of a bar, which was resting in these metal loops attached to the ceiling of his house. That's like having a track in your living room. They had to bolster the floor of his house so the whole thing wouldn't cave in. It was very scary just being near it. He went to a very high consciousness. And for us it was all a very deep meditation.

WIE: You were all meditating?

AF: Yes, we were all meditating, and then he got under it and lifted it. He pushed it a couple of inches off the loop so that he was actually holding it. And you know, we were not surprised because we've had such incredible spiritual experiences with him. When we see him do something like this, we're not surprised. We almost expect that he can do anything that he wants to do. And he's doing it to inspire us, to inspire people to transcend themselves. People are so limited by their minds. And he's just trying to say, "Okay, you've got to break out of that mental limitation." People can't believe it, but we were there. 'There were about twenty five people who were eyewitnesses; we have pictures. But you know, he's not claiming records or trying to get into the Guinness book. It's just one of the many ways that he has to inspire people.

WIE: That's really extraordinary. You mentioned surrender – could you speak more about what makes these feats possible?

AF: Well, yes; it's surrender to the will of the Supreme. In his case, he really has very close communication with the Supreme, and he is a surrendered instrument. He sometimes calls himself a football – the Supreme can just kick him in any direction that it wants to, and he's completely surrendered. Really, that's the only way he does any of this. It's not based on technique. Everything lie does – his painting, playing musical instruments, everything – it's not any kind of fancy technique. It's all corning from his heart and from his soul. He's really an instrument, letting the divinity flow through him and create. He's trying to tell us that we can all do this if we can surrender, if we can get into that consciousness where we can overcome our own mind and I ended up doing 131,000 jumps altogether, which broke the record. But the record was not accepted.

WIE: Why not?

AF: Because they have rules. In any kind of marathon event, over an extended period of hours, you're only allowed five minutes after each hour to rest. Not having really looked into it, I didn't know. So even though I was jumping much faster – I broke the record with an hour and a half to spare – I rested too much per hour. So they didn't take it, and that was it. But then I tried again. The next one I did was the jumping jack record, and that one was accepted.

WIE: Is it true that since them you've earned the most world records?
AF: Right. I have more than seventy. Since 1979 I've broken seventy one Guinness records. But I currently have, I think, fourteen in the book. That's because many times a record will get broken and then I break it back, or sometimes they retire different categories. They actually gave me the record for having the most records, which is also a Guinness record category.

WIE: And were you a naturally athletic person?

AF: No, not at all. That's why this thing is so exciting for me. I had always been interested in the Guinness Book of Records as a kid. I was fascinated by it for some reason. I found out, just a couple of years ago, that I was born four days after the Guinness book was conceived. I think there was some connection because in that year – I was born in 1954 –Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. And there were other things like that happening. So I had always been interested in it as a kid, but I was very unathletic. My father was an attorney and really stressed education. I was into that; I was very, very mental. I felt that sports were a waste of time. I could be reading or studying – why waste my time doing sports! My whole life revolved around the mind. I didn't see any purpose in developing the body.

I became dissatisfied with life as a teenager. When I was fifteen, I read Siddhartha. I started really becoming disillusioned with the world as I saw it, and with my life, as I saw how it was going to become like my father's or like others around me. I didn't want to lead a life like that; I didn't see any meaning in it. So I started searching, doing yoga, and reading books on Eastern spirituality. Sri Chinmoy actually lived in my neighborhood. I saw a poster and I went to a meditation – they were held in his house in those days.

WIE: How old were you?

AF: I had just turned sixteen. I knew the second that I saw him that he was my teacher. I had no idea what his philosophy was. In fact, my concept was that I was going to go into a cave and try to realize God. That was my idea. I was a little disappointed to find out that that wasn't his philosophy. But I knew he was my teacher. As soon as I saw him, I saw that he was a divine being, and I knew that I was meant to follow him. So I had to conform to his philosophy of staying in the world, not going into a cave, living in the world and manifesting for other people whatever spirituality that you get through your own spiritual practice.

His idea is that the have to live in the world and be examples, to try to inspire other people. And also, to develop every part of ourselves; not only our spiritual part but our mind and our heart and also our body. So he would encourage people to participate in sports. But because I was so unathletic, I just figured, "Oh, that doesn't apply to me." Because I was like the biggest nerd. I just really didn't believe in it and I didn't feel it applied to me. But after a number of years, there was this big race in Central Park, a twenty four hour bicycle race.

WIE: Was it put on by Sri Chinmoy?

AF: No. I don't know who it was; it was sponsored by Pepsi. It was in 1978.They had a five – mile loop in Central Park, and the idea was to ride the most times around this five mile loop. You wore kind of a bib, and they would stamp you every time you went around. Sri Chinmoy encouraged all of his students to join. He himself went out and practiced. He would go out at five in the morning and ride his bike around in the park. And I figured, "Okay, well, I think maybe I should join this:" I had no idea. Not having ever done sports, I really had no idea.

So I bought a bike and trained – I rode around for ten days or something before the race. And then the night before the cent, we had a meditation. just for fun, Sri Chinmoy asked each person – we had about two hundred people who were entered in the race – how many miles they thought they were going to do. Usually people would ride and then sleep for a few hours, and then ride, and then rest – like that. The really good athletes in our group were thinking like 300, 325 miles, because it's a hilly course, and it was hot. I figured, "Okay, I'll say 200 or maybe I'll say 250 – I mean, that would be incredible for me."

WIE: This was your first physical effort?

AF: Yes, exactly. It came to my turn and instead of letting me say anything, Sri Chinmoy said, "Oh, Ashrita, how many miles are you going to do? 400.” And I almost fell over. I was really in shock. Because 400 – I think the guy Who won the race did just a little more than 400 the year before. I was numb. I just kind of nodded.
I went home, and I knew that Sri Chinmoy could see something within me that I wasn't seeing. So I was determined to try to do that 400, or else I was going to die trying. I literally wrote out my will. Not that I had much – I had a rabbit and a bird because I used to do magic shows for kids. I really had no idea what would happen, but I was ready to go out into the battlefield.

So I took a little picture of Sri Chinmoy and taped it to my bicycle. I had a very good meditation right before the race – and then I went out there. And it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I've had so many since this started! For one, two, three hours, everything was going well, I was keeping the pace. And then, of course, my legs started hurting, and I would use different things that Sri Chinmoy taught me.

WIE: Like what?

AF: For instance, I remember vividly that my quadriceps really started to ache, and I said to myself that the Supreme was massaging my legs. In other words, instead of feeling that sensation as pain, I felt it as something good. When I started getting tired, I would start chanting and using all the techniques I had learned. I would start saying a mantra, or I would try to do some pranayama [breathing exercises]. All this was happening on the bike!

It was amazing. I remember that at one point the course was almost completely empty. This was in the middle of the night. It was very, very dark, except for a few lights in Central Park. I was riding around the course with the wind blowing through my hair, and I was up there with the leaders! Riding around the course! By the morning, people were in shock.

Because I think I got off the bike once for a bathroom break for five Minutes. But people, everybody, could not believe it, because they knew I wasn't an athlete. And even Sri Chinmoy seemed surprised, I think. I ended up tying for third place overall – I did 405 miles.

WIE: That’s fantastic!

AF: It was an epiphany for me. It was obvious that it had nothing to do with me – with my body. It was completely the grace of my teacher and the Supreme.

From that moment, when I got off the bike – well, I fell off the bike – I knew that I was going to try to break a Guinness record. That was such an incredible experience for me. That was the basis of everything else. I knew then that I would be able to get into the Guinness book. And I wanted to do it, really, to honor my teacher, because all of this was coming from him. I dedicate every, one of these Guinness records to Sri Chinmoy because I feel that he's inspired me. And not only inspired me – he gives me the capacity because I invoke him throughout when I'm trying to break a record. I consider them as spiritual experiences. Besides that one vision on the pogo stick, I've had many, many deep spiritual experiences doing the records.

WIE: Is there any particular record that stands out for you as even more challenging than the rest?
AF: I'm going to tell you, about the somersault, because it was very inspiring, the somersault record. But first let me tell you how I came to try for that one. You see, the first record I did was jumping jacks. The record was 20,000; I did 27,0000. As I told you, I was in such terrible shape – I could only do 50 when I started. I would do jumping jacks as a meditation. I would meditate and then do the jumping jacks almost as an extension of my meditation. I finally got tip to the point where I could do 10,000 and then I went for the record.

It was one of my favorite records to do because I had a picture of Sri Chinmoy right on the wall at the gym. I would meditate on the picture while I was doing the jumping lacks. So I did 27,000 and broke the record. And then I figured, "Wow, that was my first official record." I looked in the book, and I saw right next to the jumping lack record was the somersault, or technically, forward roll. And I thought it would be kind of neat to have two in a row. I tried it, and I got so dizzy doing even a few rolls that I said, "No, no. Let me try something else:' But it bothered me, because I felt that I should be able to transcend that feeling of dizziness and nausea. Someone else did 8.3 miles.

WIE: Someone really did 8.3 miles of somersaults, forward rolls?

AF: Exactly. So I kept thinking about it. And one night I went out at two o'clock in the morning when no one was around, because otherwise people would think I was crazy. And I rolled around the track; I did a quarter of it mile. I was so happy. I was completely nauseous, I didn't use any padding, I was black-and-blue covered in dirt – there was glass on the track. But I was thrilled that I had been able to push through and do quarter of a mile. I practiced and got to a point where I felt I was ready to try for the record. I actually broke the record in Central Park: I did ten miles. And nobody broke my record, so then I decided that I was going to break my own record. And I chose to do Paul Revere's ride in Massachusetts.

WIE: How long is that?

AF: It is twelve and a quarter miles. People magazine was there, and there was a lot of media coverage. I was very, very nervous, and, well. I ate four slices of pizza the night before. I was doing this thing called carbo-loading but I didn't realize that it was not going to get digested. So I was completely sick. It's funny, the unofficial rule, Guinness rule, is that you have to do continuous rolls, but they allow you to stop to throw up. Because the thing is, you do have to throw up. It was also a hilly course. I had never trained on hills. I had only trained on a flat track. So right away, my whole equilibrium was off. l was struggling from the moment I started. People were screaming, "Ashrita, how are you doing?" My friend was yelling out, "Oh, yes. He's going to Charlestown!" And I’m thinking to myself, "I'm never going to make it. There's no way I'm going to make it:" Usually I'm not in that kind of frame of mind, because I usually try to stay in a soulful consciousness while I'm doing this, really stay within my heart and think of my teacher. But I was really thrown off. I felt so nauseous and sick from the very first mile. I figured, "I'm never going to make it:"
This is actually one thing I love about the records: there's always this moment of truth, somewhere – usually in almost every single attempt – where I really have to transcend my body and my mind, go deep within and really connect with my soul and with my teacher's grace. I'm invoking it all the time. There's a moment when I have to truthfully make that jump, leave my own human capacity and jump into something beyond me. It is something that I can't even take credit for. I don't take credit for these things.

So around five or six miles, I was finished: "I just can't I just cant go anymore:" I stopped, and I meditated. And I got the inspiration. I had a very deep meditation – it was very quick but I had a very deep meditation. I really felt this force, this divine force inside me, and I kept going. The record was ten miles, and I decided, "I'm going to go just a little past ten miles and then stop. I'm not going to finish:" I had already decided that in my own mind, because it was so painful.

A radio station had been broadcasting my progress, and there was a furniture store a little bit past the ten mile point. They had put this lounge chair out on the road, on the sidewalk. I saw this chair out in the distance like an oasis. And I said, "Okay, I'm going to hit that chair, and I'm going to stop. That's it. I'll have broken the record, but I'm not going to finish. I'm not going to go to the end:" I got to the chair and plopped down. I said, "Okay, that's it:" I told my friends who were with me, "That's it. I'm finished:" They said, "Ashrita, we actually called Sri Chinmoy:" Because one fellow knew me very well, and he had figured out what I was thinking, even though I never expressed it. He said, "I called New York." Now, Sri Chinmoy doesn't usually get involved. I couldn't imagine that they had called and found him. They told him that I was having a lot of trouble and that f was probably going to stop just after ten miles and not finish the whole course. So Sri Chinmoy said, "tell Ashrita that he has the capacity to do it:' As soon as I heard that, I was overjoyed. My teacher was actually telling me that I could do it! I was in a pretty good consciousness, and I knew that I would find some way.

So I just got out of the chair and I started rolling. With each roll at this point, my whole abdomen would cramp up. It was very painful. But with the first roll I did, these words came out of my mouth, "I am not the body; I am the soul." It was like a mantra, which I had never said before nor had ever heard before. With every roll, I did it, "I am not the body; I am the soul!" And l tell you, it was thrilling! It was exhilarating! I finished with no problem at all. I had no physical injuries after. I had been so uplifted by that message. Again, I attribute everything to my teacher, because he gave me that message that lifted me up out of my physical pain so that I no longer identified with what was happening with my body. That's my goal in all of these things, to try to transcend the physical and go beyond it.

WIE: It's very inspiring just to hear you speak about it.

AF: I feel like we only touched the tip of the iceberg, but the tip hopefully will inspire some people.